In hole-forming for forming a hole that may have various shapes such as circle or rectangle on a plate-shaped workpiece by laser-cutting the workpiece along an outline of the hole, a cutout piece may get stuck in the hole due to a narrow kerf width. Since a kerf width by laser processing with CO2 laser becomes narrower than that by laser processing with fiber laser, the above-mentioned stuck tends to occur.
If a cutout piece gets stuck on the workpiece, the cutout piece may enter between a work table and the workpiece when moving the workpiece relatively to the work table, and thereby a surface of the workpiece may be scratched. Therefore, a laser processing machine provided with a cut and separation device for forcibly dropping a cutout piece off from a hole after hole-forming on a workpiece is proposed (see a Patent Document 1 listed below).